CLOSING THE GAP TO RAISE THE BAR: The Power of 5 CRITICAL QUESTIONS

While gains in student achievement occur inside the classroom and are directly influenced by the effectiveness of the teacher, large system change, in owning every student, is only possible when everyone in the organization sees him- or herself as responsible for the success of each student. Each class contributes to the school targets, each school contributes to the system targets, and each system contributes to the state targets.

One way to assess how we are making a difference for each student is to check for deep use of assessment “for” and “as” learning by asking five critical questions that I first asked students and now ask teachers and leaders as well:

What are you learning?

How are you doing?

How do you know?

How can you improve?

Where do you go for help? (Lyn Sharratt Learning Walks and Talks Training Materials, 2008-2015)

School leaders who do daily Learning Walks and Talks (Sharratt & Fullan, 2009, 2012; Sharratt & Harild, 2015, Sharratt & Planche, 2016 (In Press)) gather evidence of teachers’ intentional teaching and of students’ improvement when they ask students the five questions above. Students who can accurately describe their learning, and how to improve, close the achievement gap. After many walks, conversations with teachers ensue. Leaders ask authentic questions about why teachers make the decisions they make. Leaders also take action if teaching is not occurring at a competent or preferably high-impact level. Action must be taken if students are not progressing at an expected rate (Sharratt & Harild, 2015, Chapter 4).

The Power of Five Questions is in answer to the question “How Do You Know All Students’ are learning?” System and school leaders at every level who ask students the five questions get feedback on how explicit the instruction is and improvement is progressing. They use that feedback to become a large and focused part of every Professional Learning session, which is critical for all teachers and leaders to craft collaboratively. Taking daily Learning Walks and Talks to ask learners the five questions is essential. Similarly, ensuring that teachers have the time to reflect on the firm foundation necessary for all students’ mastery of reading, writing, oral language, and problem-solving skills to answer the five questions provides the springboard needed to incorporate the 21st-century learning skills into the curriculum content.

Good to Great to Innovate

The new Corwin-published book “Good to Great to Innovate” that I wrote with Gale Harild, is becoming a best-seller. The message of student voice and choice and preparing more relevant career and learning pathways is absolutely on target today.